OptionalsetOPTIONAL for the same reason as setPolarity — the mirror installs one when the adapter
carries none, so an alignment reaches the lane on every console.
Optionalreference: stringOptionalsetOPTIONAL on the adapter contract — the mirror installs one when the adapter carries none, so Ø reaches the lane on every console rather than only on adapters that declare it.
The head-stage WRITERS the mirror wraps — the ADAPTER's, not the software mixer's.
The adapter is the ONE seam every kind's head stage passes through:
MixerEngine.applyHeadAmpcomposes the coarse gain encoder and the fine trim into a single dB and hands it here, for an input, a bus and MAIN alike. The software mixer beneath it holds a head stage only for INPUT strips (SoftwareMixerAdapter.setGainreturns early on a bus, and the mixer has no strip runtime for MAIN at all), which is why wrapping the MIXER made MAIN's gain, trim and Ø unreachable while the row above them reported success (audit D18, task #46). MAIN is a strip: its head stage is the master lane's, and this is the seam that can see it.